Andy Morgan of Dayton, Tenn., is in second place with 46 pounds of bass – 12 ounces behind Bryan Schmitt of Deale, Md. – going into the final day of the FLW Tour tournament on the Mississippi River in Wisconsin, and Wesley Strader of Spring City is seventh with 43-3. The top 10 go back out today in the quest for the $125,000 top prize. Schmitt overtook Morgan with 15-12 on Saturday, when Morgan brought in 14-12. Morgan, the Tour’s angler of the year three of the last four seasons, will be in second place in the 2017 standings after this tournament.
‘ The third-year Bryan College fishing team, also based in Dayton, goes into the final points event of the 2016-17 year this week at Florence, Ala., with a 155-point lead over second-place Tennessee in the Cabela’s School of the Year standings and a 181-point advantage over 2015 and 2016 Cabela’s champion North Alabama. The BoatUS Collegiate Bass Fishing Championship is a double-points event on Pickwick Lake, UNA’s home water, so Bryan still can be overtaken but has four boats participating: Nathan Bell and Cole Sands, Matt Brown and D.J. Barber, Chandler Fogg and Connor Fogg and Dylan Pritchett and Connor Thompson. UT-Chattanooga is fifth in the Cabela’s standings with 2,043 points to 2,362 for Bryan, 2,207 for Tennessee, 2,181 for UNA and 2,083 for 2016 national runner-up Bethel. Mississippi State, Murray State, McKendree, Tennessee Tech and Calhoun Community College complete the top 10. Bell and Sands won the Bassmaster Eastern Regional last week on Cherokee Lake and will be joined at the Bassmaster college nationals Aug. 10-12 on Lake Bemidji in Minnesota by Bryan teammates Jake Lee and Jacob Foutz, Dylan Kear and Dalton Price and Brown and Barber. And Bell and Sands already have qualified three times for the 2018 FLW collegiate national tournament, but they’ll be in the 2017 FLW nationals May 31-June 2 on Wheeler Lake, based on last year’s results, with different partners – Bell with Kear and Sands with Connor Cohran – along with Foutz with Lee and Thompson with Pritchett.
Golf
‘ Lee University finished seventh out of 12 teams Saturday in the Cleveland school’s first NCAA Division II national golf tournament. Lee totaled 1,268 for 72 holes at Findlay (Ohio) Country Club, four shots behind sixth-place Rollins. Barry University won by a stroke at 1,222. Lee’s Caroline Moore was 16th individually at 311 after a closing 76, and Sam Burrus (76), Anne Hedegaard (78) and Haverly Harrold (81) wound up at 316, 321 and 325. “I feel like we got better as the tournament went on, which is what you want to see,” coach John Maupin said in a Lee release. ” We have a young roster, and I think we learned a lot from this experience.”
‘ Dalton State freshman golfer SM Lee officially was named an NAIA PING first-team All-American after tying for fourth place Friday in the national tournament at Silvis, Ill. Lee was one of 11. He was a medalist four times, including in his conference tournament, and finished no lower than sixth in his 10 events as a first-year college golfer.